Good morning. It’s Friday, Sept. 5.
- Sikh truck drivers face harassment after Florida crash.
- Silicon Valley leaders lavish praise on President Trump.
- And Ellen DeGeneres makes $190 million flipping houses.
Statewide
1.
Punjabi Sikh truck drivers in California are facing a wave of harassment after an undocumented Sikh truck driver from Stockton was accused of killing three motorists in an Aug. 12 crash in Florida. Sikhs make up roughly a third of the trucking business in California. As the Florida tragedy has become fodder in the national immigration debate, drivers have reported having water bottles and eggs thrown at their trucks. Gurjant Singh, a trucking operator in Fresno, said fear has grown so pervasive that some of his drivers are refusing to travel to Florida. Fresno Bee
- Sikh advocate Naindeep Singh: “They rushed to politicize a tragedy, trading in fear and xenophobia while tarring an entire community of immigrant truckers.” Fresno Bee
2.
The titans of Silicon Valley joined President Trump for a dinner at the White House on Thursday and took turns praising him, a spectacle that reporters likened to the meetings of Trump’s fawning Cabinet. Bill Gates thanked Trump for his “incredible leadership.” Tim Cook praised his “leadership and focus on innovation.” And Sam Altman gushed over Trump’s “pro-business, pro-innovation” mindset. Notably absent was Elon Musk, who said he was invited but couldn’t make it. Wall Street Journal | Axios
3.
A striking partisan imbalance emerged after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cancelled nearly 700 grants nationwide, an analysis found. That’s because blue states fought back in court, restoring nearly 80% of their terminated grants. For red states, just 5% were restored. In Georgia, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, for example, the Trump administration terminated a combined 44 grants in May and June; none were revived. California, which sued, retained all 25 grants that the administration tried to cancel. NBC News
4.
The photographer Todd Weaver takes dreamy analog pictures of the ocean and surfing in California. The project coincided with his own relationship with surfing, which became an obsession in the last seven years or so. His love for the sport seems to pulse through pictures that capture surfers communing with nature as much as riding waves. The Guardian published 12 images from an exhibit of Weaver’s work now on display at the Fahey Klein Gallery in Los Angeles.
- See more of Weaver’s photos.
Northern California
5.
Joseph Emerson, the Bay Area pilot who tried to shut down a plane’s engines midflight in 2023, is set to plead to criminal charges on Friday. He is expected to plead guilty to interfering with a flight crew, a felony, and no contest to a felony count of endangering an aircraft. Emerson was initially charged with 83 counts of attempted murder, which were reduced by a grand jury. Emerson told investigators he ate psychedelic mushrooms two days before boarding the plane. He tried to a force a crash to wake up from what he thought was a dream, he said. Oregon Public Broadcasting | The Oregonian
6.
During a podcast appearance last week, the Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff hyped up his company’s use of artificial intelligence to replace workers while declaring the last eight months “the most exciting” of his career. Days later, Salesforce said it was firing more than 250 workers from its San Francisco headquarters. That’s on top of more than 4,000 customer support workers who have already been let go and replaced by AI agents. AI-human workforces are now the reality, Benioff explained: “I don’t think it’s dystopian at all.” S.F. Chronicle | SFGATE
7.
When designing the Golden Gate Bridge, the engineers chose a suspension system that could be erected high over the water to allow the passage of big ships. But it would push the bounds of civil engineering to build what would be the world’s longest suspension bridge. The cables would need to be massive, too heavy to lift into place. Instead, the engineers devised a way to fabricate them in the air, pulling a wire the thickness of a pencil back and forth over the towers and across the strait, then grouping the strands together into two 3-foot-wide cables. They were so impressive that officials made an exhibit with a cross section, pictured above. You can find it at the welcome center on the San Francisco side of the bridge. GoldenGate.com
Southern California
8.
The Justice Department on Thursday sued Southern California Edison, accusing the utility of negligence that led to two deadly wildfires: the 2022 Fairview fire in Riverside County and the Eaton fire in January. The official investigation into the Eaton fire is still ongoing. But U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said “there’s no reason to wait,” citing “Edison’s own statements in its recent SEC filings that there’s no other apparent cause for the fire.” His office is seeking roughly $80 million in damages. L.A. Times | A.P.
9.
How bad is the traffic in Los Angeles? So bad that a group of entrepreneurs is planning to launch a ferry service running parallel to the coast. They’re calling it the Blue Highway, and they hope to have it reach as far as Santa Barbara to Newport Beach. The ride between the Santa Monica and Malibu piers was estimated to take about 24 minutes. “That’s a tough time to beat on the road,” the Los Angeles Times wrote.
10.
Comedian Ellen DeGeneres and her wife, actress Portia de Rossi, have made $190 million flipping houses, an analysis found. Before trading California for Britain to escape Donald Trump’s presidency, the couple bought and sold at least 34 homes since the mid-2000s, most of them in California. The transactions showed no obvious sign of trying to time the market. Yet they drew average returns of 37% on the properties, not accounting for the cost of renovations. In an interview, DeGeneres said she is just passionate about architecture. Wall Street Journal
11.
On this week’s California Sun Podcast, host Jeff Schechtman talked with Peter Jones, whose new documentary “Fortunate Sons” follows the lives of the 1974 graduating class of Harvard School for Boys, a former military academy for the sons of the Los Angeles elite. What began as a few pandemic Zoom calls to reminisce about the old days led to surprisingly honest conversations about addiction, suicide, and the pressure of living up to successful fathers. “What I learned is no matter where you come from — privilege, wherever — life happens to everybody,” he said.
In case you missed it
12.
Five items that got big views over the past week:
- Joshua Amirthasingh’s photo series “Tales from the City” captures the romance of San Francisco — a couple on a park bench, a lone surfer, old buildings shrouded in fog. “What is not on display is wealth,” writes Andrew Sean Greer. Financial Times
- In a travel piece, the Wall Street Journal declared that Coronado Island is cool again: “Tidy rows of houses with wide porches and billowing flags channel classic Americana, residents zip around the streets in golf carts, and Orange Avenue, the central drag, is lined with charming homegrown businesses where everybody seems to be a regular.”
- Marin County is a place of charming towns, natural beauty, and perfect weather. But a new publication focuses on the flip side of all that perfection. In the pages of Marin Lately — a sort of The Onion for a Bay Area audience — life in Marin is cloistered, bland, and pompously liberal. N.Y. Times
- ADU companies are offering more and more designs in kits that can be shipped directly to buyers’ homes. As part of an ongoing series on prefabrication companies, Dwell showcased new fire-resistant cabins designed by Polyhaus, co-founded by an architect in La Jolla.
- The movement of fog is commonly described as drifting, descending, or rolling. In San Francisco, it can be more like the rushing of a river. Photographer Eric Thurber recently captured a fantastic time-lapse of the phenomenon known as Fogust. 👉 Reddit
The California Sun, PO Box 6868, Los Osos, CA 93412
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